


The Friendship Shuffle

by nevertothethird



Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M, Hopeful Ending, Movie Night, References to Dirty Dancing, playing fast and loose with canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 08:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13970865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevertothethird/pseuds/nevertothethird
Summary: 1x01 AU: First, Coach proves to himself, and everyone else, just how charming he is. Then Schmidt decides the Wild West Charity Auction for Poverty can’t be missed. So after the daring(I’ve Had) The Time of My Liferescue, Nick and Jess have a movie night. Just the two of them. And some boozy milkshakes.





	The Friendship Shuffle

On their way out of the restaurant Coach manages to do the impossible. Actually, he manages to do the impossible three times over. 

  1. He charms the hostess in the actual process of kicking them out of the restaurant, 
  2. He gets her phone number, and 
  3. He makes a plan to meet her for drinks once she’s off work in an hour



The cab ride back to the loft consists of Coach boasting about his level of game while Schmidt pouts about how all he wanted was one night of fun, but  _noooooo_ , he has to be selfless and never think of himself, and  _REALLY, NICK!_ this was an event for charity, and Associated Strategies has donation matching so now Poverty won’t receive the money they so desperately need, but that’s  _fine_  because all he cares about is being a good friend, and if that means missing —

“Fine, Schmidty!” Nick leans forward and mutters something to the cab driver. The cabbie flips a u-turn in the middle of the intersection and now they’re heading back to the club.

“Oh,” Schmidt says, pressing a hand to his chest and feigning surprise. “Nicholas, this is too much, really. But, fine, okay, if this is what you want me to do.” Schmidt is out of the cab the moment it pulls up to the curb, throwing a couple of twenties into the window to cover the extra cab fare, and then he’s gone.

“You should go with him.” Jess is in the front seat and has twisted her body to make eye contact with him. She’s been chatting with the cab driver the majority of the ride and has already gotten a good portion of the man’s life story. Nick checked out the moment Jess asked the man what his hopes and dreams were.

Nick looks out the cab window to where the line at the club is still grotesquely long and then back at Jess. He tries to not look for Caroline in the process. “Jess, there is a man out there wearing the head from a horse costume  _and_ assless chaps. I want to go home.”

“If you say so,” she says, and then turns back around to the cab driver. “I think you should go for it, Stony. You and your wife won’t know unless you try. And yes, small business loans are risky, but –”

Nick shakes his head, ignoring the conversation once more, and stares out the window. Once they’re back at the loft, Coach excuses himself to the bathroom and then his bedroom to get “game-ready” and Jess shuffles away to change into pajamas.

“Want to watch a movie?” she asks.

Honestly, he was kind of hoping to seclude himself in his bedroom, go over every word Caroline spoke to him tonight, then draft and delete several text messages asking her to meet up for that drink. But Jess’ bushbaby eyes are all wide, and still a little glassy, so he finds himself nodding.

“Sure.”

Her smile is beaming, and he had no idea it was possible for a grin to be that wide or for eyes to be that bright. He blinks as she strides past him, a strange but cute picture in pink flannel and fuzzy slippers.

“You get comfy, I’ll make popcorn.”

By the time Nick has changed into his sweats, Jess has found the supplies to make both popcorn and bourbon and vanilla milkshakes for each of them. He wants to snap at her for wasting quality booze - and, okay, maybe he doesn’t do a great job of hiding his immediate irritation - but she just rolls her eyes and cajoles him into taking a sip. He doesn’t say anything else after that because, fine, whatever, it’s delicious. And strong. She doesn’t say “I told you so,” but he knows she’s thinking it. As she reaches for the bowl of popcorn, Nick wonders if Jess has ever simply walked anywhere in her life. He’s seen her dance, sneak, bounce, run, and right now she is practically prancing to the couch. Never walking.

Jess smushes the pillows and cushions on the couch just so, wriggling around to get comfortable. She throws a blanket over her legs, leaving half of it spread out on the couch beside her. Inexplicably, Nick feels his palms getting a little damp and his heartbeat accelerate so it’s a tick too fast. It must be the combination of both familiarity and newness that this picture brings him. He hasn’t simply sat on a couch with a girl watching a movie since Caroline, and he also knows Jess left that part of the blanket for him to cover up with. There’s no explanation for it, but that gesture alone is leaving him a little dazed.

Really, he should have expected what he finds when he walks into the living room -  _Dirty Dancing_  is all cued up.

“So is this movie about strippers, or –?”Jess moves the blanket from the couch cushion, Nick sits, and she flips the blanket over his lap.

“It’s both coming of age tale and a story of a young woman’s sexual awakening.”

“This is my nightmare.” Nick moves to stand up but Jess grabs his arm and pulls him back down.

“You’re going to love it.”

They’re ten minutes into the movie when Coach finally comes out of his room, all suave and cologned up. He points and laughs at the two of them on the couch. “What is happening here?”

Nick frowns, ready to trash Coach in return, when Jess pauses the movie.

“Nick wanted to go out but I told him I wasn’t up for it and begged him to hang out with me. He’s pitying me and staying in.” She gestures to Nick with her thumb and stage whispers to Couch. “Good friend alert.”

“Well, have fun with that.” Couch salutes the two of them and then he’s gone.

“What’d you do that for?”

She unpauses the movie. “Do what?”

“You didn’t  _beg_  me.”

“Yeah, well.” Jess swirls her straw around in her milkshake, mixing up the smudge of chocolate syrup at the bottom of the glass in with the ice cream. “I know I’m a weirdo and you weren’t really on board with me living here.” She shrugs. “It’s the least I can do to help you save face with your bros.”

He wants to argue with her, explain she’s gotten the wrong idea, and he’s kind of finding he’s into her brand of weird, but instead –

“Don’t say bros,” he says.

“Your homefries?”

“Or that.”

“Dawgs? With a w?”

“Definitely not that.”

“Fine.” It appears her attention is now on the screen as Patrick Swayze gives the girl with the curly hair a dance lesson in a smokey bar, but he’s not fooled. “Air Buds?”

“Jess!”

Her eyes get all wide and she shrugs her shoulders like she doesn’t actually know what she’s doing. It’s endearing, which is annoying. He huffs out a laugh and slurps down some of his milkshake.

They may have only been roommates for a few weeks, but it’s the quietest he’s ever known Jess to be. And okay, yeah, he’s maybe enjoying this a little. The movie, and Jess, and watching the movie with Jess.

A montage of some sort is happening on the screen with the curly haired girl being bad at dancing and Patrick Swayze being angry and the Penny person there for some reason. Why are they dancing in their underwear? Does that make them more aerodynamic?

“Want to know a fun Jess fact?” she asks.

“Sure,” he says.

“I loved this movie so much as a kid my parents used to buy me these little plastic dressup shoes. They reminded me of the ones Penny and Baby wore. I went through three or four pairs a week because I danced so hard I’d break the heels.”

“That  _is_  a fun fact.”

Minutes later, Patrick Swayze and the curly-girl are dancing on a log while Nick and Jess have finished their milkshakes. He’s feeling relaxed enough to slump further down into the couch.

“Want to know another fun Jess fact?” She pulls her legs up on the couch and angles her body towards him, scooching a little closer.

“Sure.”

“I used to recreate this part of the movie with my mom. She’d stretch her legs out on the coffee table and hold my hands and let me walk on her shins like they were a tree log.”

“That must have hurt.”

“She has knee problems to this day.”

Nick chuckles, shaking his head a little as he does. He watches as the couple dances and then drives off together in a rainstorm, and Nick isn’t sure why he does it. It’s like he can see what he’s about to say but his mind’s also on a delay - he can’t stop it from happening.

“Want to know a fun Nick fact?”

“Yeah!” Her voice is a little too loud because she is right there next to his ear. “Sorry,” she whispers. “I mean, sure. Yeah. Whatever. I like facts.”

“I can do  _that_ ,” he says, gesturing to the screen with his empty milkshake glass.

“What? Drive in the rain?”

“No. The movie thing. The dancing stuff.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious. I mean I’m not as –” he waves his hand at the screen, “or whatever, but I can cut the very corner of a rug.”

“How?”

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. Is he doing this? Sharing bits and pieces of his life and story with this girl? She’s all wide eyes and eagerness. He guesses so. “Senior year of college, my final semester, I was six credits short from graduating. I took too long to register so everything was filled except –”

“Ballroom dancing.”

“Um, excuse you,  _social dancing_. Both the Monday/Wednesday and the Tuesday/Thursday sessions.”

“You took them both?”

“I took them both. Three credits each.”

She picks up the remote control, full on stops the movie, and moves even closer to him. “I don’t believe you.”

“Okay. You don’t have to.”

“You’re being serious?”

“Yes.”

“Prove it.” She pulls the blanket from their laps and throws it aside, takes the glass from Nick’s hand and sets it on the coffee table.

“What?”

“What can you do?” she asks. 

She stands up, tugging on his arm as she does, and he follows her around to the other side of the coffee table.

“I don’t know. Like some of the basic steps. And a couple of turns, I think. Maybe one of those lift things.”

Her mouth gapes and she blinks at him – her bushbaby eyes somehow appearing both wider and bluer. “Excuse me?”

“What’d I say?”

“You can do  _the lift_?”

“Yeah. I can pick a tiny woman up and lift her over my head.”

She’s still staring at him, but she starts to back away.

“What are you –?”

Jess doesn’t stop moving until her back hits Schmidt’s door. She takes one step backwards, and then leans forward like she’s about to run. “Ready?”

“Ready for –? Oh, you’re serious? You want me to?” She nods. He wipes his sweaty palms on his sweatpants, and nods. “Fine. But I don’t want to hear about it if I drop you.”

“You won’t.”

“No bringing it up years from now.”

“I promise.” 

“And I haven’t done this in years.”

“Consider my expectations lowered.”

“You’re sure you’re ready?”

She nods again, determined, her eyes narrowed and set. “Yup.”

“Okay.” Nick takes a step back, crouches a little to lower his center of gravity. “Let’s do this.” Jess hesitates for a second and then she’s running at him full speed.

The bottom of his stomach plummets because,  _oh shit_ this was not a good idea. For so many reasons. One of which is he’s pretty sure she’s not wearing a bra and that is a kind of distracting he was not prepared for. The voice of his dance teacher is loud in his ears -  _aim for her thighs, aim for her thighs_  - and he reaches out for her as she gets closer. Right as she’s in front of him she pulls up, stops, and stares up at him with a wide-eyed panic. His hands come to rest on her hips. Jess takes a deep breath and then abruptly turns around so her back is to him.

“De todo un poco,” she sings, swaying from side to side. “De todo un poco.” She does this little shimmy where she points her right thumb in one direction and then shuffles her body in the other direction, repeating the move to the left.

 _Oh god._  She’s a nutcase. A nutcase who is still shuffling from side to side as she hums the song from the movie. Over and over. Like she’s a Jessica-Day-Bot that has malfunctioned.

“Jess, stop,” he says, trying not to laugh. He grabs her elbow and turns her around so she’s facing him again. “ _That’s_  the part of the movie you wanted to recreate?” He’s failing at the not laughing thing.

“Stop,” she says, smacking his shoulder. She leaves her hand there. “Okay. Stop laughing. It’s a lot harder than it looks. I’m understanding Baby on a whole new level now.”

He nods, looking down at her. “Yeah. Those of us trained in the art of social dancing make it look a lot easier than it is.”

“Oh, shut up, Miller.” She grips the fabric of his t-shirt a little and it’s then he notices that they’re sorta pressed up against one another. His hands are still on her hips, right at the waistband of her flannel pajamas, and she’s almost  _patting_  the wrinkles out of his shirt. Like she knows she should stop touching him so is trying to come up with a reason their contact is legitimate. It’s a feeling that doesn’t suck. 

“Thanks for movie night,” she says. Her voice even lower than normal.

He swallows. “You’re welcome.”

“And for the restaurant.”

“Yeah.” He rubs the jut of her hipbone, pronounced even under all the flannel, with his thumb.

Now  _she_  swallows. “And for your general humanness.”

“Well, I do what I can.”

She’s kind of walking her fingers across his shoulders to the neckline of his t-shirt, playing with the extra fabric of the cuff there. “Nick?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you’re great.”

“I’m really not.”

She shakes her head, emphatic. “No. You are.”

They’re just staring at one another now, neither one moving closer or further away. “But?” he eventually asks.

“‘But’ nothing. I think you’re great.”

And that’s not something he’s used to - true openness and sincerity with no strings attached. It makes him want to cry for some reason. “Jess. I am a mess.”

A part of him wants her to disagree with that too, but she doesn’t. She nods, smiling up at him as she does. “Me too.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you made this a good night.”

It feels an awful lot like they’re trying to have a serious relationship conversation which is ridiculous because they haven’t even  _done anything_. They’ve flirted, and then kind of danced, and now they’re just breathing in one another’s space.

“And I hardly know anything about you,” he says, “but I like you a lot. I really do.”

She blinks up at him, sweetly. It makes him want to do nonsensical things - like find out how she takes her coffee, pick her a flower, and maybe bake her a pie. “So maybe we press pause?” she asks.

“Press pause?”

Jess nods. “We have movie nights. We stay friends. And then when you’re ready –”

“–or, you’re ready.”

“Yeah. When we are mutually less of a mess, we go for it. We unpause.”

He slides his hands up a little higher on her waist, pushing some of the fabric aside as he does. It’d be so easy to not do that. To keep moving his hands higher, up under her pajamas, and brush his fingers against the softness of her skin. But a couple hours ago she was ready for a rebound, and just last week he was angry-journaling about Caroline, so she’s probably right.

“Okay.” He can’t quite bring himself to let go of her pajamas. They’re pink, and soft, and he traces the lines of the plaid pattern with his index finger. “Deal.”

“Deal,” Jess echoes. She lets go of his t-shirt and Nick takes that as his cue to put some distance between them. “A deal between bros.”

“Jessica! No  _‘bros.’_ ” He means to sound stern, truly, but she looks so damn pleased with herself and he can’t help but smile.

“Well, a deal between friends, then?” She sticks out her hand for him to shake.

“Yeah,” he nods, still having a difficult time doing anything but smile at her. He takes her hand, gripping it tight as they shake. “Friends.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've written for a fandom other than _Veronica Mars_! Thanks for reading :D


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